Chu Chun-teng (朱駿騰) is showing his latest multi-channel video installation in his solo show August 15 (八月十五). The work is based on the disappearance of an elderly man. Chu started an investigation and uncovered security footage that caught the last sighting of the man. Recordings of his family recount their final moments with him and the ensuing search, while another part of the installation follows elderly people with mental disabilities around a nursing home. August 15 is a powerful conceptual work that examines the fragility of our mental state and raises awareness of dementia and mental wellbeing.
■ Meme Space (覓空間), 12F, 9, Roosevelt Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路二段9號12樓); tel: (02) 2396-5505. Open Mondays to Saturdays from 11am to 6pm
■ Until Sept. 23
Photo courtesy of the artist and National Museum of History
Kao Jun-honn (高俊宏) is showing his latest installations and video works in Abandoned Path: A Creator’s Geopolitical Method (棄路:一位創作者的地理政治之用). Kao’s practice is meticulous and carefully planned. In his 2014 video Dual 1984, he merged two separate events from the UK and Taiwan — an accidental explosion at a coal mine that killed many and news footage of coal mining strikes, as well as interviews with people who discuss both events. The result is an eerie statement about the politics of energy.
■ Asia Art Center I (亞洲藝術中心一館) 177, Jianguo S Rd Sec 2, Taipei City (台北市建國南路二段177號), tel: (02) 2754-1366. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6:30pm
■ Until Sept. 24
Photo courtesy of the artist and Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts
Hsieh Mu-chi (謝牧岐) is showing new acrylic paintings in his solo show Unforgotten (忘山). Hsieh’s landscape paintings ponder the genre itself, where the mind of the artist is part of the scenery, and effectively distorting the boundary between reality and representation.
The solo exhibition I’m Here (我就在這兒) features a survey of Chinese artist Mao Xuhui’s (毛旭輝) oil paintings. As one of the pioneers of Chinese contemporary art, Mao represents abstract ideas and concepts — an overturned chair or scissors, for example, may represent death or loss of power. His works are melancholy, due in part to the tragic loss of his daughter.
Things Wholesale (好多事量販) is a solo show of Lee Ming-hsueh’s (李明學) conceptual installations. Fascinated by mass consumerism, Lee depicts candy, stationary, cleaning supplies and coins as elements of desire. By employing these seemingly benign objects, the artist questions the perception and reality of consumer culture among other issues.
Photo courtesy of Bluerider Art Gallery
■ Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (關渡美術館), 1 Xueyuan Rd, Taipei City (台北市學園路1號), tel: (02) 2896-1000 X 2432. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 5pm
■ All exhibitions until Sept. 24
Swiss installation artist Marck will present mixed media installation works in The Box, his first solo show in Taiwan. Marck’s installations are made with LCD panels, sand, wood, electronic devices and steel are trade marks of Marck’s highly recognizable style. His integration of humans in mechanical environments questions the human condition and the relationship between humans and our inventions.
Photo courtesy of the artist and Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts
■ Bluerider Art Gallery (藍騎士藝術空間), 9F, 25-1, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路四段25-1號9樓), tel: (02) 2752-2238. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 9am to 6pm
■ Opening reception tomorrow from 4-6pm. Until Oct. 28
Mind Roaming in Nature (自然心遊) is a solo exhibition by Lo I-hui, (羅一慧). Lo’s semi-representational landscapes suggest a natural environment that has been deteriorating.
Photo courtesy of In River Gallery
■ In River Gallery (穎川畫廊), 2F, 45, Renai Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路一段45號2樓), tel: (02) 2357-9900. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 1pm to 8pm
■ Until Oct. 4
Lee Shien-wen (李賢文) is showing his ink paintings at the National Museum of History in a show titled Dreaming Back to Nature (返回自然之夢). Lee examines religious themes that are rendered in a simple style that is similar to illustration, offering a view of the natural world that is fresh and uplifting.
■ National Museum of History (國立歷史博物館), 49 Nanhai Rd, Taipei City (台北市南海路49號), tel: (02) 2361-0270. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10 am to 6pm
■ Until Sept. 24
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby